Feds in 19 cities to be relocated, GSA says

Apr. 21, 2014 - 06:00AM
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The Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland, Calif., is one of 20 that GSA is seeking to renovate in an effort to consolidate federal offices in 19 cities. (Wikimedia Commons)

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The General Services Administration says it plans to spend $70 million to consolidate leased federal offices across the country.

GSA is trying to renovate and update a federal building in each of 19 cities so that federal employees who work in nearby buildings can be consolidated into a single building, or at least into fewer than are currently used, said Mafara Hobson, GSA’s deputy associate administrator for media affairs.

Roughly $67 million will go toward renovating 20 federal buildings in 19 cities. Contracts for the work have yet to be awarded, Hobson said.

“This consolidation effort will not only reduce costs by eliminating multiple leases, but also scale back the federal government’s energy and water consumption,” GSA said in an April 21 press release.

The agency said the move will save tenant agencies $17 million in annual rent payments and trim the federal real estate footprint by 507,000 rentable square feet. It will also cut the government’s leasing costs by more than $38 million, GSA said.

GSA did not say how many federal employees will be relocated as a result of this effort or when those relocations will occur.

GSA is also promoting greater use of open work spaces in federal offices as a way to reduce the ratio of square footage per employee.

GSA is the government’s primary landlord, and provides more than 9,000 leased and owned properties as workspace for more than one million federal employees. Those properties represent a combined 378 million square feet of workspace.